Confronting Murderous Men, page 12
Aldridge: ‘When I got into West Terrace I saw two policemen riding bicycles out of Gilbert Street onto West Terrace. I was going to pass on the left of them when one of them came across in front of me.’
Herman: ‘How far did you go after striking the constable before you stopped?’
Aldridge: ‘Twelve yards.’
Herman: ‘Are you sure it was not more than that?’
Aldridge: ‘Well, it was 14 yards at the outside.’
Herman: ‘Are your brakes good?’
Aldridge: ‘Well you came up in the car with me and you ought to know they are good.’
Herman: ‘Did you sound your horn before you struck the constable?’
Aldridge: ‘Yes.’
Herman: ‘What did you do after the constable was struck?’
Aldridge: ‘I pulled up and Riordan and I went back. I held the constable’s head for some time and then felt sick so I went away back to Riordan.’
Herman: ‘How long did you hold the constable’s head for?’
Aldridge: ‘I held it for a few minutes.’
Herman : Did you hear the constable call out for the driver of the car?’
Aldridge: ‘No.’
Herman: ‘Why didn’t you give the constable your name and address before you left?’
Aldridge: ‘He did not ask me for it.’
The questioning continued in this vein for no real purpose until Herman asked, ‘Are you sure you held the constable’s head?’ Aldridge, ‘Yes, I washed the blood off my hands at the young lady’s place.’ His lady friend does not seem to have been identified. Aldridge also claimed that he had called the hospital and was told that the constable was not too bad and they would know more in the morning. When confronted by Herman with the evidence of the doctor believing Clayton would not live long, Aldridge said, ‘I did not ring up myself, the young lady’s father rang up.’ He was not identified either.
Harry Aldridge
At the end of the interview, Detective Herman informed Aldridge he would be charged with the wilful murder of Constable Clayton and he was cautioned again. He did not wish to add to his statement. Herman had other concerns. When Aldridge was searched he was found to have £1 and a three penny piece in his possession. Herman asked, ‘Why did you tell me that you could not buy any petrol and you did not have any money?’ Aldridge said, ‘I want this money.’ Also found in his possession were a clean linen handkerchief and a clean silk handkerchief. He had no sign of blood on him and there was no blood on the steering wheel of the car or the inside of the car. At the petrol station Herman tried to sound the horn of Aldridge’s car but it would not work. As Aldridge drove along he screwed the horn button and got it to work, claiming that it didn’t work earlier as the car was stationary.
Herman’s interview was clumsy and wavered between a traffic accident and something resembling a criminal investigation, but didn’t achieve anything either way. There were a lot more loose ends to tie up, like the alleged girlfriend, her father, Joe Riordan, and verification of where he had been before the collision and after it. There is no indication from the brief for the coroner that this was done. In any event, a charge of wilful murder in these circumstances was never going to succeed. It appears to have been driven by sentiment rather than sound law and even in 1928–1929, police practice was universally more advanced than what Detective Herman was offering.
Frederick Percival Vanstone, manager of the Government Motor Garage and senior mechanic, was called on to examine Aldridge’s car. He identified it as a Studebaker 4 which had hand and foot brakes operating the rear wheels. With Detective Evans he drove the car through Sir Lewis Cohen Avenue, Adelaide, at full speed of 37.5 miles per hour (60.35 kilometres per hour). He conducted further tests with the gears disengaged and both hand and footbrakes engaged. His assessment was that the brakes of the car were not safe to drive with and were positively dangerous. The horn sounded but did not give a sufficient warning and was very weak.
The inquest into the death of Constable Clayton opened on 4 January 1929 before Mr Mathews, assistant city coroner. Mr Pickering of the Crown Law Office appeared for the police, and Mr Wald for Aldridge, who had been allowed bail. Wald questioned Constable Spiers on his and Constable Clayton’s positions on the roadway. Spiers denied they were riding on the tram track and said they had ridden 30 feet from Gilbert Street. They were not riding at such a slow pace that their steering was difficult. Wald put to him that he had told bystanders, ‘I’ll get the driver of that car life for this’ and Spiers denied having said any such thing. It showed what the tenor of Aldridge’s defence would be. Aldridge was not called to give evidence.
Constable Edward Spiers. IWM https://livesofthefirstworldwar.iwm.org.uk/lifestory/6985970#remember.
After the brief hearing the coroner, understandably, committed Aldridge for trial on a charge of manslaughter, finding the death of Constable Clayton was due to his culpable negligence. The charge of murder was withdrawn, giving a clear indication of its overreach.
Aldridge stood trial at the Adelaide Criminal Court on Wednesday 27 February 1929 before Mr Justice Piper and a jury. Crown prosecutor Chamberlain outlined the case, including Aldridge’s claim that Constable Clayton had swerved in front of his vehicle and could not be avoided. Mr Eric Millhouse and Wald represented Aldridge, who pleaded not guilty. Evidence was called and the trial adjourned to the following day for the purpose of allowing the jury to visit the scene of the collision.
The jury and other interested parties examined the scene in West Terrace and it was recorded by a photographer from The Register-News Pictorial, in itself not a matter of great moment or cause for comment. However, the photograph published the following day showed a broken line indicating the path of Aldridge’s vehicle and a cross which purported to identify the point of impact.
The publication of the photograph caused annoyance to the trial judge, who took exception to the markings on it and the citation beneath, which read, ‘The dotted line in this photographic diagram shows the course of the car along West Terrace, and the cross marks the approximate spot of the collision.’ Judge Piper announced, ‘I wish to direct the attention of the court and jurors to the publication of the photograph, the words quoted, and especially to the dotted line shown thereon. The newspaper has made a definite statement that the line was the track followed by the motor car of the accused. The question of which track was taken by the car is a vital and important matter, which has to be taken into consideration by the jurors. It has an important bearing on their minds. I strongly deprecate an act of such an improper nature by a newspaper. The case is still before the court. It is a gross injustice, and the persons responsible for its publication should have known better. It appears that they have attempted to usurp the functions of the jurors.’ He advised and directed that the jurors ignore anything they might have seen in the newspaper concerned.
The actions of the newspaper in trying to steal the march on the jury stood a good chance of aborting the trial. The judge did not take that option and the trial continued. What effect it had on the jury would never be known.
Witnesses who had given evidence at the inquest were called and on the third day of the trial, Aldridge gave evidence on oath. He told the jury of turning from Anzac Highway (Bay Street), north into West Terrace, travelling at between 18 and 20 miles per hour. When about halfway between South Terrace and Gilbert Street (one block) he saw two constables on bicycles come out of Gilbert Street. They crossed West Terrace, so he sounded his horn. Constable Clayton swerved across in front of his car and he couldn’t avoid a collision with him. He knocked the constable down, stopped the car and went back to where the constable was lying on the road. He told the court he was a strict teetotaller and had been driving for some years. The brakes of his car were in fair order at the time of the accident.
Mrs Emmie May Carter, who hadn’t appeared at the inquest or notified police she was a witness to the event, gave evidence of being a resident of 170 West Terrace, near the scene of the accident. She noticed two police officers riding bicycles along West Terrace and a motor car coming behind them. When the car was a few feet away, she saw one of the constables swerve to the left in front of it. He was knocked down. Had the constable not made that turn ‘…all would have been well’. Mrs Carter was not interviewed by police and was called by the defence. Defence counsel must have had amazing contacts to find the only witness who claimed the constable’s bicycle had swerved, thereby creating a doubt in the minds of the jurors.
Not only was Mrs Carter’s evidence clear, it contradicted that of Aldridge, who claimed he had seen the constables from half a block away and had no time to stop. She clearly saw the constable travelling north in West Terrace, she said. Witnesses in the yard next to the hotel, Geraghty and Grunert, who were directly opposite the point of collision and watched it occur, had said nothing about the bicycle swerving, nor did other witnesses. In fact, Grunert had called, ‘Gee, look, he has got him.’ Geraghty looked up and saw the two constables riding north between the western kerb and the tram tracks. Their evidence showed that the constables had travelled north in West Terrace, at least 30 metres, to be opposite the hotel yard, refuting Aldridge’s claim they had just entered West Terrace.
Geraghty and Grunert saw the car strike Clayton, but more importantly, they saw that it was going to collide with him as he approached at speed. There was no suggestion of Clayton veering into the path of the car. Constable Clayton was seen by the witness Hyla Staker to twice look around at the car and after the second glance, hunch over his handlebars apparently to gain speed to avoid being hit. Aldridge was not slowing down and the absence of skid marks indicated he had not tried, or the brakes were defective to the point of not allowing him to do so.
Aldridge had claimed when interviewed that the constable had swerved in front of him, but it appears that he was not asked to clarify this. Emmie Carter became the only corroborative witness to Aldridge’s claim. Why hadn’t she spoken to the investigating police? Where had Mr Wald found her? What checks were made of her bona fides?
Riordan, the alleged passenger in Aldridge’s vehicle, does not appear to have been called or perhaps even interviewed.
The Crown put Aldridge’s responsibility to the jury and his defence played on Clayton swerving and his being a teetotaller. The jury retired for almost four hours and returned a verdict of not guilty. Aldridge was discharged. The Register-News Pictorial printed their mea culpa for printing a photograph of the collision scene under the column describing Aldridge’s acquittal.
Yet there were questions left unanswered, stemming mostly from them apparently not having been asked. What independent evidence was there that Aldridge was a non-drinker? Where had he come from just prior to the collision and where was he going? Was he in a hurry? His departure point and intended destination needed to be checked. What were his movements on Christmas Day? Where was Riordan? There was so much more that could have been done and the South Australian police had the expertise to do it at the finest level as shown by their inquiries into the murder of others. And lastly, why did he run?
Constable Cyril Fletcher Clayton was 28 years old at the time of his death. He and Hilda Birkett married on 21 April 1926 at Kilkenny, Adelaide. The couple had met on the TSS Esperance Bay, which left London on 26 August 1924. Hilda arrived in Adelaide on 1 October 1924, and Clayton appears to have disembarked in Melbourne. Born in Branksome, Dorset, on 12 April 1900, he had been employed in the mills as a hosiery assistant, and later, as a gardener. Hilda was born in Manchester in late 1899, and had been a domestic servant. Clayton served in the Royal Field Artillery in World War I and was recognised as a returned soldier when joining the police on 9 November 1925. He was stationed at Adelaide at the time of his death. Neither he nor his wife had relatives in Australia and his police family filled the void. Constable Clayton was buried at the North Road Cemetery, Adelaide on 27 December, after the cortege left his home in Kent Town.
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On Friday 19 April 1929, six weeks after his acquittal, Aldridge was riding a horse trained by Herbert Clues, who employed him as a jockey and with whom he lived. His duties involved exercising horses on a daily basis at the Victoria Park racecourse. He was also responsible for exercising a horse owned by Wald, the solicitor who represented him at the Clayton inquest and had instructed at his trial.
At 5.30 am he left home riding Clues’ horse while leading the horse owned by Wald. Jockey William Smith saw Aldridge and the horses coming towards him in Victoria Avenue, Rose Park, and nearing the corner of Swift Avenue. He saw the horse that Aldridge was leading appear to slip down and pull back, pulling Aldridge over the hindquarters of his mount, which jumped forward and lashed out with both hind legs, kicking Aldridge, who dropped to the roadway, unconscious. He was carried by four men to a house nearby from where he was taken by Clues to Adelaide Hospital. When operated on in the evening to remove pressure from a cranial haemorrhage he was found to have a large transverse fracture of the skull. His condition deteriorated and he died the following morning.
CHAPTER 9
1929
Foot Constable John McLennan Holman
Adelaide, South Australia
John McLennan Holman
John McLennan Holman came into the world on 15 February 1906, the second son of Dudley, a labourer, and Eliza Holman of Hilton, West Torrens, South Australia. His second name was a nod to his maternal grandfather. Tragedy first struck the family in January 1915 when his elder brother by two years, Reginald, contracted tetanus after stepping on a sharp bone in their backyard. He was just ten years old when he died.
Dudley, perhaps in his grief, left his wife and remaining children to enlist for war service in September the same year. The ploy failed and he was discharged medically unfit for further duty due to a nervous condition.
After attending school at Richmond, John Holman became a battery assistant at the motor department of Harris Scarfe Limited in Grenfell Street, Adelaide, and would soon become the mainstay of his family.
On 10 October 1927, he was sworn as a probationary foot constable in the South Australia Police Force and worked from Adelaide. He was confirmed in that role a year later. In that short time his work performance was impressive, so he was taken into temporary plainclothes duty at the Adelaide plainclothes office from 18 December 1928. It was from this duty that he had just completed his shift at 11 pm on Saturday 23 February 1929 when recalled to respond to two violent incidents in Grenfell and Halifax Streets.
Driving his private motor car with constables Sydney ‘Ernest’ Bugden and John Marshall as passengers, Holman made his way to a house at 199 Grenfell Street where there had been a disturbance. An Indian motorcycle and sidecar stood unattended in the gutter outside the house and inquiries could not determine who owned it. Two men were spoken to in Tam O’Shanter Lane at the side of the house, but they denied ownership of the motorcycle outfit, before moving off towards Hindmarsh Square.
Marshall instructed Bugden and Holman to take the vehicle to the Adelaide city watchhouse. They couldn’t start it, so both began to push it in a westerly direction along Grenfell Street, assisted by William Foxwell, a wharf labourer who had been in the house. Foxwell managed to get the engine going and Holman sat on the bike and Bugden in the sidecar as they moved off in the direction of Hindmarsh Square. Near the square they were ordered to stop by two men, one of whom aimed a pistol at Holman, saying, ‘You have got my bloody motorbike.’
Dwelling 199 Grenfell Street. SLSA photograph B 14204
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Earlier in the night, some tit-for-tat sparring had taken place between two groups of reckless and dangerous louts who seemingly had scores to settle that were deemed so serious to them that handguns came into play. It is more than likely the house at 199 Grenfell Street was a sly grog outlet, if not a disorderly house in the fuller sense.
The opposing camp seemed to gravitate to around 83 Halifax Street, Adelaide, not far distant, and where the odd drink could be obtained after 6 pm hotel closing. Arthur William ‘Lofty’ Lawrence lived there and he, George Skinner and Clem Roberts had gone to 199 Grenfell Street, opposite the Crown and Anchor Hotel, but did not enter. Perhaps brisk competition caused antipathy between both groups.
‘Lofty’ was lying low and his whereabouts were eagerly sought by John Stanley McGrath and Albert James Matthews, accompanied by William Lee, a pianist from 199 Grenfell Street. McGrath suggested they go for a drive and the three of them went on the motorcycle and sidecar to McGrath’s home, then to another for more drinks and on to 83 Halifax Street. McGrath and Matthews went to the front door and Lee stood just inside the front gate. McGrath spoke to a person at the front door and pushed past Matthews, pulling a pistol from his hip pocket. They had confronted George Skinner and demanded to know where ‘Lofty’ was. Told he was not in, McGrath said, ‘You are ‘Lofty,’ and fired a shot as Skinner retreated to a bedroom and slammed the door shut. McGrath fired five more shots at the door and Matthews asked for the gun so that he, too, could ‘have a pot at him’, but its rounds had been spent. Having made their point in their blustering, blundering way, they returned to Grenfell Street. Skinner, Roberts and ‘Lofty’ Lawrence soon after went to 199 Grenfell Street, where McGrath came out of the house to their car and asked for ‘Lofty’. ‘Lofty’ Lawrence denied he was the man sought and drove away.
These fools had done their worst, or almost, and went back into the house. The police had been informed of the melee and shots having been fired and attended 199 Grenfell Street near 11 pm, but no-one was forthcoming with information and no-one claimed ownership of the motorcycle outfit. However, there is little doubt it was used by McGrath and Matthews, who had left Tam O’Shanter Lane for Hindmarsh Square on foot.
Foot constables Clement King and Emil Tilka were making inquiries at the house and King followed Holman and Bugden as they pushed the motorcycle until it was started. He saw them bailed up by two men who he identified as McGrath and Matthews. He heard McGrath say, ‘Get off that bike.’ He saw both constables get off the bike and heard Holman announce his office and tell McGrath to put the gun away. Holman walked toward McGrath and Matthews, and McGrath fired three or four shots. King saw Holman clutch his stomach and stagger back towards the motorcycle. King called, ‘I am a police officer.’ McGrath turned and fired a shot at him, which missed. King returned fire, but intentionally fired high. McGrath retreated several metres and fired at King again before running off. Bugden called, ‘Stop or I’ll shoot.’ It was a bluff as neither he nor Holman were armed. King followed McGrath past the Grenfell Hotel and was again fired at. King returned fire and McGrath fired another shot at him. King fired again and McGrath fell, a bullet breaking his leg near the ankle.
